Memphis must make Ja Morant's life easier and other keys to victory vs. Knicks

The underachieving Memphis Grizzlies (4-7) visit the Knicks (6-3) at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, looking for an upset and to get their season on track. New York has won four in a row, hasn’t lost at home and sits second in the Eastern Conference.

Notably, Memphis’ start with their (relatively) new coach, Tuomas Lisalo, has been rocky, unlike New York’s with new lead Mike Brown. Even with the struggles, the Grizzlies are capable of elevating their play if they want it badly enough.

Coming out of halftime

The Knicks are one of the better outfits coming out of intermission and shoot 42 percent from 3-point range in the third quarter. The Grizzlies will have to set high enough pick-up points so someone like Jalen Brunson isn’t walking into deep shots. Aside, help defense has to be sharp because they expose unnecessary swarming like a hot knife cutting through butter. Each moment of a game is equally important, but sustaining intensity in the third is more difficult because of the break in action. Memphis must do better than being the 19th-best defense in this period to avoid an unnecessary hole going into crunch time.

Transition defense

It’s a clash of styles: Memphis is the eighth-quickest NBA team, while New York is the fifth-slowest. The hard part about playing fast is that it can hinder a team’s defensive intensity by wearing them out quickly. The Grizzlies can’t let this happen again because a team may be slower, but they’ll punch the accelerator if they see weak transition defense. Keep in mind that the visitors are in defensive transition, 11th-most in the league, and they allow way too much success —134.2 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 22nd percentile per Cleaning the Glass.

Hunt the weak defenders and swing to the corners

The Knicks are logging the ninth-ranked defense to start the year, but it has holes, particularly when starters Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are in. They are poor pick-and-roll defenders because of Brunson’s backpedaling speed, and the latter can not guard at the level well. In this set, Memphis has Ja Morant’s speed as an advantage when picking on them, so he should be able to get to the in-between area of the lane, hoisting floaters.

On top of that, the Knicks, like every team in the league, overload the lane away from the corners to stop dribble penetration in the half-court. As long as they are aware of a sniper in that spot, which is statistically the easiest area to drop buckets, they’ll be able to do severe damage. Keep in mind that Jaren Jackson Jr. plus Santi Aldama average 50 percent accuracy in that spot.

Make Morant’s life easier

Denying Morant the ball is one strategy to slow him down, which the OKC Thunder had some success with on Sunday. It wouldn’t hurt for more off-ball screens to come his way so he can rip up the lane on more catch-and-go moves.